Merkel hopeful ahead of coalition talks

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) has expressed optimism ahead of what is widely-anticipated to be the decisive round of "Jamaica" coalition talks on Thursday.

Although "grave differences" remained between the parties involved, Merkel told press that she believed an agreement between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU), Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Green party (Gruene) "could be achieved."

The Chancellor vowed to "contribute to" the success of talks over the formation of the next German government and urged the prospective coalition partners to assume their "responsibility" towards voters.

Merkel argued that reaching a common denominator was "very important" for Germany at a time of "great polarization."

"Today is the day on which we must also seek to understand each other's respective positions" to ultimately arrive at a "positive result", the CDU leader said. Thursday's discussions are being held with an "open end" and are expected to continue late into the night (CET).

However, significant obstacles must still be cleared before the "Jamaica" parties can progress to the final stage of coalition negotiations.

For example, the Green party occupies an isolated stance in the policy area of migration where it insists that refugees with subsidiary protection must retain the right to family-reunification.

By contrast, the FDP and CDU want to preserve a temporary regulatory provision made during the 2015 refugee crisis which suspends this right for migrants who have received residency in Germany under the subsidiary protection framework instead of having been granted asylum. The CSU has yet to adopt a clear position on the issue.

Nevertheless, Green party parliamentary vice-president Claudia Roth said that her faction would "fight with all its might" to secure their migration policy demands.

FDP secretary general Nicola Beer responded to such belligerent calls with an appeal to keep discussions objective and pragmatic.

"I will go to work now, highly-concentrated and objectively-oriented," Beer said ahead of the negotiation round.

"If the emotions, and in particular, ideologies are kept a bit aside then (coalition talks) can succeed," the FDP secretary general added.

Financial considerations are another source of frictions which still threaten to unravel "Jamaica" negotiations. Manifesto pledges made by the CDU, CSU, FDP and the Green party would far outstrip the between 35 billion euros (41 billion U.S. dollars) and 45 billion euros (53 billion dollars) in estimated governments funds available to the next government over the course of four years.